Reusing the food from last night's dinner is a regular thing for me, but often I don’t feel like having exactly the same thing several days in a row. So sometimes I get a little creative and many of my recipes are developed this way. Today's featured leftover – quinoa. I used black quinoa, but whether you have a white, red, or mixed one – they all work well, and I am sure the recipe would also work with leftover barley, bulgur, or any other grains.
I always use onion and celery in all sorts of patties, and these are not an exception. In case you don’t like them, just omit and feel free to add some garlic, for example. I am not a garlic lover and this is why it is almost never used in my recipes, but since we all cook for ourselves, it makes sense to trust our own tastebuds.
To serve, I used some other leftovers – marinated red onions and as an extra element, I roasted the outside leaves of cauliflower with salt and a little oil. Roasted cabbages are so so delicious. Probably most people have had kale chips but maybe roasting the outer leaves of cauliflower is not as common. I assure you, it is worth a try. As the leaves have stalks, they will not be as crispy all the way through as kale chips, but the stalks stay rather chewy while the thinner leaves are deliciously crispy. To roast the leaves I preheated the oven to 400-degrees with the fan on. I massaged the leaves with a little oil and salt and placed them on the baking sheet in a single layer. After about 7 minutes in the oven, I flipped the leaves over and cooked for another 5 minutes. Yum!
Cauliflower-Quinoa Patties
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Yields: 16 patties
Ingredients:
1 cup of cooked quinoa (I used black)
1 head of cauliflower
1 onion
2 stalks of celery
3 tbsp chickpea flour
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
Salt and pepper, to taste
Oil for frying
Instructions:
Cook the cauliflower until soft.
In the meantime, chop the onion and celery and mix with the quinoa and spices.
Drain the cauliflower, mash up and mix with the quinoa mix.
Add the chickpea flour and mix well.
Heat a little oil on a frying pan.
As the mixture is still warm, be careful and form little patties between your hands.
Fry until golden, 2-3 minutes, flip over and fry from the other side.
Serve hot or cold.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: www.kahvliga.ee.
Enjoy this FREE 25-Minute yoga class from home, before your delicious plaintain nachos!
25-Minute Full Body Yoga with Keith Allen